chotomy, which contains two mutually exclusive groups: bad comparative law and good comparative law.Nonetheless, there have been others who are even stricter and who underline more heavily the need for comparative law to be truly scientific.A prime example of a scientificated, academic comparative lawyer was Léontin-Jean Constantinesco who started the second part of his massive bookTraité de droit comparé with a somewhat stunning quote from Paul Koschaker: “Schlechte Rechtsvergleichung ist schlimmer als keine”.10 Methodological teaching is devastatingly plain, or simply put, if you do not want to do your comparison scientifically, do not do it at all. For Constantinesco, the main rationale for writing about and doing comparative law was to develop it towardscience juridique universelle comparative.11 One might be inclined to think that this kind of scientia thinking would have gone out of fashion. Nevertheless, this is not the case.12 Pierre Legrand who is one of the most cited names in modern comparative law, although perhaps not necessarily the most accepted, has also built his epistemological and methodological thinking of comparative law upon a dichotomous base.13As a stringent schoolmaster from the past, he also makes lists of various theoretical demands for doing proper comparative law and also lists a countless number of perils for not doing so i.e. doing comparative study of law theoretically poorly. To put it concisely, according to Legrand’s critical hermeneutics-oriented philosophical comparative law remedy, the field should be re-directed toward studying what is different.Allegedly, this would open up new dimensions and new theoretical vigour for the whole discipline.14 One obvious counter-argument, in this context, would be to claim that Legrand’s views tends to be rather extreme as in the case of legal jaakko hu sa 109 10 Constantinesco (1974) at 15. 11 Constantinesco (1974) pp. 319-326. 12 E.g. Brand (2007). 13 However, it must be clearly stated that Legrand’s version of “being theoretically solid” differs in its use of philosophical vocabulary if compared with the old-school functionalism: the former uses continental philosophical language (e.g. Derrida, Foucault) whereas the latter talks about objectivity, causal relations, explanations etc. What is common to them both is that they uphold the quintessential dichotomy between practice and theory. See for more detailed discussion Jaakko Husa,“Farewell to Functionalism or Methodological Tolerance?”, 67 Rabels Zeitschrift für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht (2003) 419-447. 14 See, e.g., Legrand, “The Same and the Different”, in Comparative Legal Studies: Traditions andTransitions, edited by Pierre Legrand and Roderick Munday (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2003) pp. 240-311.
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